AESTHETICS OF CARE AND SUSTAINABILITY IN TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION: IMPLEMENTING A GAME-BASED METHODOLOGY
Year: 2024
Editor: Grierson, Hilary; Bohemia, Erik; Buck, Lyndon
Author: PEREZ, Santiago; PAVLOVA, Yoana; FORNET VIVANCOS, Antonio; KOUTSOMICHALIS, Marinos; GEORGALLIS, Teresa; MCCABE, Hugh; DUGGAN, Brenda
Series: E&PDE
Institution: European Culture and Technology Lab, France; Université de Technologie de Troyes; Technical University of Sofia; Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena; Cyprus University of Technology; Technological University Dublin, Ireland
Page(s): 593 - 597
DOI number: 10.35199/EPDE.2024.100
ISBN: 978-1-912254-200
ISSN: 3005-4753
Abstract
There is a wide agreement that Sustainability has failed. Planetary resource exploitation and the capitalist call for short-term planning and quick profit (often at all costs) have, arguably, been undermining efforts for a sustainable economy. The most prominent trend insofar as the latter is concerned, is on how to constrain immediate needs (or desires) to serve future ones, rather than seeking regenerative long-lasting strategies. Furthermore, the bridge between the theory and practice of Sustainability has contributed to the acceptance that human beings have decisively altered the atmosphere and have set in motion inevitable drastic changes to the Earth system over geological time. Fortunately, Sustainability has been undergoing serious changes helping not only to deconstruct the human-nature divide, but also to create bridges between the theory and the practice of the so-called sustainable practices. In this paper we discuss how the notion of ‘Aesthetics of Care’ (AoC) aids raise awareness on the development of a Regenerative Sustainability (RS) as well as on its implementation in various contexts. Following work carried out, we understand AoC as a process aiming ethically responsible action, informed/activated by sensory experience, and shaped by knowledge and aesthetic consciousness; this entails caring for ourselves, others and the planet. We propose AoC as an appropriate approach to rethink the role of technology(ies) in human development. This idea was firstly addressed by a feminist Ethics of Care, where care is treated as a central value in the society, becoming ‘everything we do to maintain, contain, and repair our “world” so that we can live in it as well as possible’. To Sustainability, AoC is thought of as a matter of relationality’ where the ‘care’ element also comprises ‘generalised relational and affective elements’ that go beyond caring about or for specific objects or beings. Hence, a concern with the environment places the AoC definition in close proximity to the recently proposed concept of Regenerative Sustainability (RS) and its three meta-principles of working towards “Wholeness”, “Change” and “Relationships”. Teaching AoC in the frame of RS, offers a valuable opportunity to rethink the way we produce, and consume, not just the objects we interact with but also our perception of reality in such a moment of ecological and social crisis. We propose a game-based Teaching Training Programme (TTP) for technological higher-education to assess work, behaviour and choices of the participants. We tested three games that could be used to introduce participants from different backgrounds to mobilise the ideas of AoC and RS within their practices, by encouraging teamwork, critical thinking and self-evaluation. These games are: ‘Atlas of Weak Signals’, ‘In The Loop’, and ‘Revolt’. They serve as educational tools that prompt questioning of decisions, actions, and attitudes concerning ecology, AoC and RS. The rules of the games are set in a particular way encouraging the development of RS using a multi-disciplinary framework. Results from a qualitative self-evaluation are presented and, eventually, it is shown that such a game-based methodology has the potential to promote and teach AoC and RS in technological higher-education milieux.
Keywords: Aesthetics of Care, Technological Higher Education, Regenerative Sustainability, Game-based Methods, Relationality